


Fantasy, Adapted

by sallysorrell



Category: The Mighty Boosh (TV)
Genre: Call of the Yeti, Canon Compliant, First Kiss, Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 05:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5445707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sallysorrell/pseuds/sallysorrell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The more I watched Call of the Yeti, the less I believed Vince would instantly go along with Parsley's hippy nonsense.  Surely something like this happened in between...<br/>(I may add these for other episodes, too.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fantasy, Adapted

“ _Parsley_?  What’s the matter with you?”

Vince was never one to argue with the names people chose for themselves, but he wasn’t completely comfortable with the way Howard - _Parsley_ \- was looking at him.  His eyes were glossy and focused, not darting about as Vince was accustomed to.  As if aware of Vince’s confusion - and if he was anything like Howard, he probably was - Parsley offered a quiet explanation.

“I feel free inside.”

“That’s great, Parsley.  Let’s get out of here.”

Parsley watched him intently but did not move forward.

“Whoa there.  What’s the rush?  Stay awhile… This is my home now.”

“What, in the woods?”

With a nod, Parsley held out his hand.

“Come, let me show you.”

He had argued at first, too.  He saw Vince, as unhappy and vulnerable as he was only an hour before.  And he had to help him.

“Are you coming on to me?” Vince wanted clarification, but received none.  

“Come with me,” Parsley continued, “And then you will see everything you need within life.”

“Everything?” Vince remained incredulous.  He stared at Howard’s hand for a long time before agreeing to take it.  

Upon reaching their destination, Parsley turned around and placed Vince’s hand back at his side.  They faced a bed, now, lavishly perfumed and draped in white.

Momentarily, Parsley was troubled; he could not recall the name of the glowing creature before him.  But he could operate beyond this, on a level his former self would’ve dismissed as ethereal.  He understood the _essence_ of this person, this component of his own soul, in fact.

This time, he reached for both of Vince’s hands, and led him carefully to the bed, where he set him.  They sat across from each other, legs folded on the mattress, just looking at each other.  Enjoying, for once, their ability to understand the silence.  

“We’re your family,” said Parsley.  Vince blinked.  Parsley responded to this with a quiet ‘shh’ and one raised finger, drawing a line between their lips.  

He took a gilded chest from beneath the bed, repeating “everything you need, within life” until Vince believed it.  Inside the box, Vince recognised a range of natural paints, ground from stones and flower petals.  There were brushes, too, for makeup and for hair.

Vince never enjoyed letting unqualified others brush his hair.  Until Parsley was doing it, fingers moving delicately through strands of it, as if over piano keys.  Parsley was comfortable, at peace with himself, and able to settle into his surroundings.  Vince would never use ‘comfortable’ or ‘at peace’ to describe Howard, who always managed to look as if he expected the opposite from his circumstances, however arranged they may have been.

“Are you,” Vince began, with Parsley stopping and turning him around first, “Are you happy here, like this?”

“This is my home,” Parsley reaffirmed, in a voice Vince found himself inexplicably attracted to, “You are my family.  What more could I need?”

Vince liked the thought of being someone’s ‘everything.’  He liked it a lot.

Parsley, meanwhile, was mixing paints.  He read it in Vince’s face, the contentment.  He reached forward, softly cupping Vince’s chin in one hand while painting stripes with the other.  The paint felt cool, and Parsley’s skin felt soft.  Vince tended to move his face back and forth when he spoke, but remained still this time.

“You’d be completely happy, with just me and this little room in the woods?”

The question, Vince knew, sounded a lot like the ones Howard used to ask him.  Back when he was thrilled with anything new in his life, and outspoken about it.  Howard thought it was ridiculous, but Parsley seemed to be in full support; he said ‘yes’ in a quiet and confident voice.  Vince had already lived in a little room amongst trees, for several years, and guessed it was something he could do again with help.

Parsley leaned in closer, slipping one hand beneath Vince’s coat to stroke his collarbone.  Vince turned his neck, facing the warm and impossibly gentle touch.  Parsley stopped, thumb pressed against the base of Vince’s throat, and, while Vince’s head was turned, moved in to kiss his skin.

Vince continued feeling confused.  Content, but confused.

“Mmm,” he hummed into Parsley’s ear.

He felt Parley’s lips press together again, before he moved back to speak.  Vince realised he couldn’t physically handle constant eye contact from Howard.  He reminded himself this was Parsley, and stifled the desperate whine that had curled up in his chest.

“Is this what _you_ want?” Parsley’s words danced with one another, rather than stumbling as Howard’s would have done.

Content.  Confused.

Vince nodded, willing to go along with whatever else Parsley dug out from beneath the bed.  

It was clothes, next.  Cream-coloured robes like his, studded with jewels and lined with beads.  He found himself _trying_ to make the situation seem unusual, him laying down and letting Howard peel his clothes off, hands never twitching and eyes never moving.  But, really, he was altogether accustomed to this, too.  Or the principle of it.  He and Howard had lived together for a decade now, in the same room, and rarely slept in more than pants and sometimes vests.  Once or twice, when they were travelling together, Vince would sleep in an oversized shirt and nothing else.  From there, this seemed a logical step.  

He felt Parsley’s hands at his chest, possessively fastening a pin to the middle of the collar.  His clothes were already neatly folded at the end of the bed.  Despite adopting passion, Parsley clearly retained Howard’s love of structure.

“We will be together,” breathed Parsley, “Everything is good here.”

They had shared a bed before, too, Vince reminded himself.  He was laying back against Parsley’s chest, letting him knead his neck and shoulders.  He rolled his head back, and immediately felt Parsley’s breath against him.

“Er, Parsley,” Vince said quietly, “Could you… could you do _that_ , but to my hair?”

This was as intimate and direct as Vince was capable of being.  The request was from the bottom of his list to use with casual encounters.  Howard’s list, though, was the same paper, turned and read upside-down.

Parsley was kissing the side of his neck while saying no; he did not want to bring any pain.  

He agreed to move it out of the way of the massage, though, parting it deftly down the middle and securing a jeweled pin around each half.

Vince turned to face him, and settled between his legs; Vince caught him halfway between crossing them.

Parsley’s lips moved to the very corner of Vince’s, careful not to smudge the paint above nor the glimmering lip-gloss below.  His hands dug at Vince’s thighs, first, then his hips, all through fabric.  As far as Vince could tell, he liked where things were going.  It was a fantasy manufactured in the backrooms of his brain many years ago, and replayed frequently despite Vince’s self-imposed protests.  There were, of course, many stylistic differences between his cinematic version and what was happening now.  The first of these was the fact _Howard_ was leading them through it.  And if that was true, the rest of the dream was wrong already.

As if to emphasise this further, Parsley repeated ‘listen to your heart’ and ‘everything is good here’ while trading their positions, so he leaned down over Vince.  He understood Vince’s compulsive little sighs as ‘peaceful’ and ‘welcoming’ and continued kissing his neck.  Regardless, he still asked before moving forward, to finally meet Vince’s lips.

“Yeah,” Vince said softly, “God, yeah.”

The kiss began there, with the sort of reserved messiness Vince expected.  But then it trailed down, ruffling Vince’s robe.  He tried to breathe quietly...

Then the Yetis arrived, grumbling about how this sort of thing was the exact opposite of what they were going for, and were forced to shove Bollo between them on the bed.  Vince and Parsley only let go of each other’s hands upon hearing a gunshot.

* * *

Howard said he couldn’t drive all through the night.  No one was able to trade places with him, so they stopped at the first hotel they saw.

Vince booked them three rooms.  One bed each.  They only needed to glance at one another for a moment to form the silent agreement.  Howard would not say anything about the arrangement, and Vince would not say anything about whatever it led to.  They stumbled off to the guestrooms, staring after each other’s hands and saying nothing.  

When Vince returned from repairing his hair in front of the poorly lit mirror, he found two things: Howard was leaning against the headboard of their bed already with no sign of the robe, and Vince had forgotten to grab his exploded suitcase or any of its contents.  Combined, this made him feel uncomfortably aware of what he was wearing.

“You _did_ pack more than just that stupid utility suit, didn’t you?” he asked.

Howard was trying to rub the last of the glossy haze from over his eyes, and did not stop to look at Vince.

“Oughta be a cardie under my seat in the van.”

“Cheers,” Vince said, already leaving to get it, “I’m not feelin’ this.”

He returned and changed into the sweater, only minimally complaining.  He found nothing wrong with it, beyond it being beige.  It was soft and warm and much too big for him, and it smelled strongly of everything Howard, as if he had worn and washed it ten times that day.  Pine-based soaps covering smoke, too-strong tea, trilby hats from charity shops.

“Move over,” he said to Howard.  He felt the need to tug the cardigan down, even though Howard wasn’t looking at him.  He was staring forward, feeling vacant in a way he couldn’t explain.

Howard did so.

“That was weird, wasn’t it?” Vince led.  Howard agreed and continued looking away.

Neither remembered the events with anything close to clarity; they each relied on a vague sense of joy and closeness, and felt compelled to lean against each other on the bed.  Their hands danced along beneath the covers until they found each other. 

When Vince touched him, Howard’s mind finally stumbled onto the concept of ‘lost.’  But not as if _he_ had been abandoned somewhere.  Instead, he felt like he had found something wonderful but was unable to keep it safe.

He tightened his grip on Vince’s hand.  Vince led it to his waist, instead, and patted it reassuringly into place.  This was somewhat closer to his original fantasy.  

The vagueness inside Howard suggested he say, “we will be together.”  But he said nothing.  

Vince didn’t mind.  The silence allowed him to settle his hand over Howard’s stomach, and nestle his head into Howard’s shoulder.  

They were together already. 


End file.
